This document provides an analysis of indie music videos by examining several artists within the genre. It discusses the origins and definitions of indie music, describing it as diverse alternative rock originating in the UK in the 1980s that was released on independent labels. Examples are given of prominent indie artists like The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, and Vampire Weekend. The document then analyzes music videos from three artists - Florence and the Machine, Lana Del Rey, and Billie Marten - examining their styles, marketing approaches, and how elements could be incorporated into a music video for an original song.

1. Indie Music Video Analysis
By Hattie Ryan

2. What is Indie music?
• Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom in
the 1980s. Indie rock was extremely diverse.
• In the mid-1980s, the term “indie” began to be used to describe the music
produced on punk and post-punk labels. A number of prominent indie rock record
labels were founded during the 1980s. During the 1990s, Grunge bands broke into
the mainstream, and the term “alternative” lost its original counter-cultural
meaning.
• The term “indie-rock” became associated with the bands and genres that remained
dedicated to their independent status. By the end of the 1990s indie rock
developed a number of subgenres and related styles.
• In the 2000s, changes in the music industry and in music technology enabled a new
wave of indie rock bands to achieve mainstream music.
• The term Indie rock, which comes from “independent”, describes the small and
relatively low-budget labels on which it is released and the do-it-yourself attitude
of the bands and artists involved.
• The influences and styles of the artists have been extremely diverse, including
punk, psychedelic, post-punk and country.

3. Examples of Indie music artist’s
The Strokes
The Arctic Monkeys
Vampire Weekend
Florence and The Machine
Coldplay
The Kooks
Arcade Fire
Lana Del Ray
The XX

4. Florence and The Machine
Name: Florence Welch
Born: August 28th 1986, in Camberwell, London.
Florence Welch was raised in a family of writers and academics.
She took to music at an early age and created her own band,
which she named Florence and The Machine. The band met with
success beginning in 2006.
• Her first album ‘Lungs’ was released on the 3rd July, 2009.
• Her second album ‘Ceremonials’, was released on the 28th
October, 2011.
• Her most recent album is ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’,
which was released on the 29th May, 2015.

5. Florence and The Machine
(style and marketing)
Lungs Album:
‘Dog Days Are Over.’ (2009)
In Florence and The Machine’s music video, ‘Dog Days Are Over’, we can tell she is a very fun artist, this is
shown through the bright colors that are used. She is marketed as being fun, artistic, creative and crazy.
From her first album she is marketed as being lively and confident.
The use of party banners suggest to the audience that she is up for a good time, this song is very upbeat so it
fits in well.
We would like to incorporate some of these elements into our music video. However, we would have to
think very careful as this is for a lively video and ours is more relaxed and laid back.

6. Florence and The Machine
(style and marketing)
Ceremonials Album:
‘Shake It Out.’ (2011)
This song’s music video is different to the album ‘Lungs’, as it is a lot more professionally carried
out.
The outfits are changed a lot more creating different scenes. There is still a continuous theme of
wildlife but the artist has explored creatively a lot more.
There is a continuous color scheme throughout each music video, this time it is red and gold,
which represents royalty. The artist has developed since her last album and this is very clearly
shown through this music video.

7. Florence and The Machine
(style and marketing)
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album:
‘Ship To Wreck.’ (2015)
This music video from this album is a lot more emotional and sad, we gather this from the
message that is being portrayed. The music video is expressing her anger for a loved one.
Over time we can see that the music videos are becoming more and more professional with
different style of shots being incorporated.
This video is very glum. However, the use of nature has been consistent throughout the albums
and this features in most songs.
This music video is different to the two previous albums as it isn’t as up beat and consists of a
lot more sad emotions.

8. Incorporation
In our music video we are going to incorporate some of Florence and The Machines
elements from her videos and put it into ours as they are of a similar genre.
The use of nature throughout her music videos is a touch we would like to add, as our
song is an emotional song a good way to express this is through nature.
We are also going to use a mixture of different clothing as style is very important to our
artist. This is similar to Florence and The Machines videos and she has a range of
different outfits but they are all of similar colors. They are also not obvious pieces of
clothing that you could find in any shop, they are of a vintage style. This is what we
want our artist to be dressed in as she’s an alternative artist and fashion is very
important to her.
We are also going to use a range of different locations and settings. As we can see from
the music video ‘Dog Days Are Over’, there aren’t a lot of locations used throughout.
We don’t want to do this as we want to create a range of different shots.
Her music videos are both performance and storyline based, this captivates the
audience. In our music video we want to create a performance but not a dramatic one
with lots of people in it because it’s all about the artist and we don’t want the audience
to loose focus. By making it storyline based this paints a picture to the audience. The
genre of the song means that shots consisting of beautiful setting are relevant.

9. Lana Del Rey
Name: Elizabeth Woolridge Grant
Born: June 21st 1985, New York.
Lana Del Rey started songwriting at the age of 18 and signed her first
recording contract with 5 Points Records in 2007. She is an American
singer, songwriter and model. Her style of music is quite a sad, slow,
and emotional theme.
• Her studio album was named ‘Born to Die’, which was released in January, 2012.
• She then released her next album called, ‘Paradise’, in November, 2012.
• After that she released, ‘Ultraviolence’, in November, 2014.
• Her latest album ‘Honeymoon’, was released in September, 2015.

10. Lana Del Rey
(style and marketing)
Born to Die, album:
‘Video Games.’ (2012)
Lana Del Rey’s music video for ‘Video Games’, is a very emotional song, consisting of
lots of different short moving images. The emotions are represented by the blurred
effect on the shots, this filter is a misty coating which suggests the artist is hiding her
emotions. In the video an American flag is featured, this suggests the artist’s
background and culture.

11. Lana Del Rey
(style and marketing)
Paradise, album:
‘Ride.’ (2012)
This song is an emotional song which tells a story of life so far. It consists of different
shots which represents her life. In her song it says “don’t break me down”, this
represents to the audience that Lana Del Rey has been through a tough time. In each
shot it has a misty filter over the moving image, this reflects to the audience how she
is feeling at the time. A lot of the shots used throughout her music videos are relevant
to her life but they appear to be random, this is a good technique as it lets us dive
deeper into her life.

12. Lana Del Rey
(style and marketing)
Ultraviolence album:
‘Shades of Cool.’ (2014)
In Lana Del Rey’s song ‘Shades of Cool’ a selection of moving images were put together
to create a story. The images are overlapped this creates a good feeling for the
audience as the transformation is smooth and the colours are very captivating. There
is a colour scheme going on throughout the music video which consists of blue; the
colour blue is usually a connotation of sadness and feeling down. This is expressed
through her lyrics. We can tell she wants to tell the audience the experiences she has
been through.

13. Lana Del Rey
(style and marketing)
Honeymoon album:
‘Honeymoon.’ (2015)
Lana Del Rey’s music video for ‘Honeymoon’, consist of a lot of cutaways, these help
tell a story and mirror the emotion that Lana Del Rey is feeling at the time and
throughout her life. All these shots have relevance to Lana Del Rey. A lot of close-up’s
are also used, this creates a very passionate and emotional message, which the
audience are able to address. Lana Del Rey is consistent throughout her music videos,
so, if you saw a shot you would know it is from the very talented Lana Del Rey’s album.

14. Incorporation
There are aspects from Lana Del Rey’s albums that we are going to alter and use for
our artists music video. As Lana Del Rey is a thirty year old female singer, songwriter,
we believe she is a good example of our type of artist. The first aspect that is eye
catching is her passion for her country, in her case it’s the United States, however we
will change this and of course use the United Kingdom. This will be demonstrated by
displaying iconic shots of famous buildings, sights, locations and even urban areas of
London. We want to show our audience that our artist is British and display this
through her performance. The second aspect that is eye catching is the idea of using
cutaways throughout the music video. Through the use of cutaways we are able to
gather a lot of information about Lana Del Rey, without her having to tell us anything.
As our song is an emotional type of song which is slow and passionate using cutaways
will be relevant to this genre of song. By using shots such as; sunsets, rain, close-ups of
guitar strings etc. we are able to gather a lot about the artist as these things tend to
represent emotions such as sadness and come across as being deep. However, sunsets
connote a new beginning, representing to the audience that the artist is full of a
mixture of emotions which we can see by the lyrics of the song. We want to use a
mixture of performance and storyline based context in our music video. We don’t want
to use too much of the performance based idea because in some cases this can come
across as being a bit too much to take in and take the audience away from the
message which is found within the lyrics of the song.

15. Billie Marten – Unaware
From the research I have done, looking into other Indie music artist’s and finding that the lyrics and
visuals correspond, I believe that it would be a good idea if we did too.
• “Soft our your hands on the weight of the world”
• “Pulling me in with a natural charm”
• “It’s not air that you’re breathing”
• “Mind is clouded and covered in smoke”
• “What isn’t mine is starting to choke”
• “You’re just a flag you’ll be flying too close”
• “When you’re young and unaware”
• “You broke, you broke all there was to be broken”
• “I’ll be here watching over all you are”
• “Stretching out, testing reaches like that like that endless open rail”